Isles Of Sea & Sky

PC

I’m taking a break from a puzzle. I’ve been staring at it for ages, making attempts that don’t quite work, trying new approaches, and I figured I should probably take this moment to stop playing and actually let you know you should be too. Isles Of Sea & Sky has been entertaining me for days, and I almost didn’t load it up in the first place.

I’m done with Sokoban puzzles. You know, block-pushing games where you have to try to make a path to reach the gem. I don’t like their fundamental design, where you reach dead end after dead end, and have to constantly restart. I mean, I say that, but then I keep saying it. I said it over a decade ago in 2013 while loving Ittle Dew, I probably said it in a magazine in the 1990s. At a certain point I’m going to have to acknowledge I like sokoban puzzles, BUT NOT TODAY. Except for this one. I think Isles Of Sea & Sky is absolutely bloody marvellous.

In fact, Ittle Dew is as good point of comparison here, given that both games take the puzzling format, but then apply it to something somewhere between RPG and Metroid-me-do. But IOSS‘s focus is much more on the puzzles, played on a series of sprawling island locations, each screen of each island containing at least one challenge, and often two or three that overlap in the same area. You, a thankfully immortal little chap, are trying to explore the area, gathering treasures that convince each island’s deity to transform certain blocks into… oh, we’ll get it to it more carefully.

Originally called Akurra, it’s been appearing as a demo in Next Fests for ages, but the final game is even more impressive than these suggested. As you explore an island, you’ll need to solve block-pushing puzzles to reach new exits, or access the game’s little sleepy stars that allow you through gateways and toward new islands once you’ve gathered enough. However, there are also little coloured gems on each island, and a screen somewhere in the north where a deity resides. Gather six of the gems, and this god will cause blocks all over the island to transform. On the first main island, this means all the yellow rocks that once blocked your path become these lovely little stone golems, who when pushed will roll until they can’t roll any further. On the second island, it’s blue blocks that become little sprites who will transform into any block type you push them toward.

This means that each network of puzzles transforms. Areas that were impossible before now become solvable, and more interestingly, puzzles you’ve previously solved one way can now be solved another. The one I’m taking a break from right now I’ve already solved twice – once to progress past, then again earlier today to get another gem, and now I’m puzzling the method to reach the sleepy star. I have to create streams of water that will allow me to pass over spike traps and pits, and I need the blue sprite to be the final water block I need, but I’m stuffed if I can work out how to manoeuvre it into exactly the right place. It involves a teleporter, that’s for sure.

But what’s so incredibly splendid here is I’m not stuck. I’ve actually got far more stars than I need right now, and as well as a bunch of other unsolved screens on this island, and some left on previous locations, I can open up a whole bunch of other areas to explore right now. It’s just, I’m really enjoying this current challenge, and want to persist with it.

So many of the super-tough sokoban games, like Stephen’s Sausage Roll, put me off because they’re not only whoppingly hard, but if you can’t do a level, then you’re done. Game over. But in IOSS, you just wander somewhere else, figure out something different, ride a turtle across the sea to find a new location to explore.

It’s all so tremendously clever, with enormous variety in its puzzles, and a very satisfying sense of progression. There are meta puzzles across islands, and entire networks of underground puzzles beneath them. It makes me feel smart when I solve something, but not stupid when I haven’t. It’s helped by being so bright, and fun, and happy.

I wish I could better communicate just how incredibly ingenius this game is, and without ever being all “LOOK AT ME I’M SO CLEVER!” coughjonathanblowcough. Instead it’s smart, modest and charming, like I’m not. The best thing is you just play it.

• Cicada Games
• Steam, Itch
• £17/$20
• Official Site

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